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H 8366Public Health

Health and Safety - Automated External Defibrillators Required at Public Places and Healthcare Facilities

This bill adds centers for independent living to the list of healthcare facilities required to have automated external defibrillators.

Held for study
Population
Affected
15
Email Legislator
Introduced Mar 27, 2026Committee House Health & Human Services

Plain-English Summary

This bill updates the legal definition of a "healthcare facility" under the state's law requiring Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in public places and healthcare facilities. Specifically, it adds "centers for independent living" to the list of facilities classified as healthcare facilities. This means these centers will now be subject to the same AED equipment requirements as hospitals, nursing facilities, and outpatient clinics.

For younger readers

An AED is a special machine that can help restart a person's heart if it stops beating. The law already says that hospitals and doctor's offices must have an AED inside their buildings. This bill changes the law to say that "centers for independent living" must also have an AED. A center for independent living is a place that helps people with disabilities live on their own. By adding these centers to the list, they will have to keep this life-saving machine in their buildings just like a hospital does.

Who & Where It Applies

Impacted groups
Centers for independent livingIndividuals with disabilitiesHealthcare facility operatorsAED manufacturers and suppliersEmergency medical responders
Impacted communities
All

Constitutional & Fiscal Check

None Likely. The bill simply expands a health and safety regulation (AED requirements) to include independent living centers. This falls well within the state's police powers to protect public health and safety and does not implicate free speech, due process, or unreasonable searches and seizures.

Estimated cost
None
Estimated revenue
None

Bill Analysis

Both viewpoints
For Progressives
  • Enhances the health and safety of individuals with disabilities by ensuring life-saving AEDs are available at centers for independent living.
  • Promotes equity in healthcare access by holding independent living centers to the same critical safety standards as traditional healthcare facilities.
  • Strengthens community welfare and the social safety net by equipping facilities that serve vulnerable populations with critical emergency response tools.
  • Mandating AEDs without providing state funding or subsidies could place a financial strain on underfunded, non-profit centers for independent living.
  • Fails to extend the life-saving AED mandate to other vulnerable community spaces, such as low-income housing complexes or homeless shelters.
  • Redirecting limited funds to purchase and maintain AEDs might force independent living centers to cut back on other essential social services.
For Conservatives
  • Promotes individual self-reliance and local emergency preparedness without creating a new, expensive government-run healthcare program.
  • Protects human life by ensuring critical, life-saving emergency equipment is available in facilities that serve the elderly and disabled.
  • Creates a level playing field by applying consistent safety and equipment standards across various types of care facilities.
  • Imposes a new, unfunded government mandate on independent living centers, forcing them to spend operational funds to purchase and maintain medical equipment.
  • Expands the regulatory definition of a "healthcare facility," thereby increasing government oversight and bureaucracy over centers designed for independent living.
  • Interferes with the free market and the operational freedom of these centers, dictating how they must allocate their private resources.

Votes

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Full Bill Text

Changes to existing Rhode Island law · 3 additions · 1 deletion

SECTION 1. Section 23-6.5-4 of the General Laws in Chapter 23-6.5 entitled "Automated External Defibrillators Required at Public Places and Healthcare Facilities" is hereby amended to read as follows: 23-6.5-4. Definitions. The following definitions govern the construction of this chapter:

(1) “Healthcare facility” means any healthcare facility licensed by the department of health including any institutional health-service provider, facility, or institution, place, building, agency, or portion thereof, whether a partnership or corporation, whether public or private, whether organized for profit or not, used, operated, or engaged in providing healthcare services, including, but not limited to: hospitals; nursing facilities; rehabilitation centers; kidney disease treatment centers; health maintenance organizations; and facilities providing surgical treatment to patients not requiring hospitalization (surgi-centers); hospice care; and physician ambulatory-surgery centers and podiatry ambulatory-surgery centers providing surgical treatment; and any center for independent living pursuant to § 42-12.2-2. The term “healthcare facility” also includes organized ambulatory-care facilities that are not part of a hospital but that are organized and operated to provide healthcare services to outpatients, such as: central-services facilities serving more than one healthcare facility or healthcare provider; treatment centers; diagnostic centers; outpatient clinics; infirmaries and health centers; school-based health centers; and neighborhood health centers. The term “healthcare facility” also includes a practitioner’s (physician, dentist, or other healthcare provider) office or group of practitioners’ offices (whether owned and/or operated by a hospital or an affiliate of a hospital or an individual practitioner, alone or as a member of a partnership, professional service corporation, organization, or association).

(2) “Public place” means an enclosed area capable of holding three hundred (300) people or more and to which the public is invited or in which the public is permitted, including, but not limited to: banks; bars; educational facilities; laundromats; public or private golf courses; public transportation facilities; reception areas; restaurants; retail food production and marketing establishments; retail service establishments; retail stores; shopping malls; sports arenas; government offices; theaters; and waiting rooms. A private residence is not a “public place” unless it is used as a childcare or adult daycare facility.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon passage.